A terminal row can be attached to an electronics housing in an insertion direction and can be connected to an electronic component, in particular a printed circuit board, that is to be accommodated in the electronics housing. A predetermined number of single electrical conductors or connectors can be connected to the terminal row to produce a connection between the single electrical conductors or connectors and the electronic component.
Terminal rows of this type are conventionally used on modular electronic devices in order to provide a connection technique, for example for sensors and actuators on control electronics or similar. Such electronic devices are used, for example, in industrial facilities such as assembly plants, in combination with what are known as field bus systems and can be clipped onto a support rail in a modular manner in order to be arranged in a compact manner, for example in a workshop. Sensors, which receive sensor signals, and actuators, to which control signals are emitted, are, for example, connected to the terminal row, it also being possible to additionally provide display elements for displaying system states or similar or operating elements for inputting a control command or to regulate state variables.
Due to the complexity and diversity of the requirements for electronic devices, for example for assembly plants, nowadays such electronic devices are developed and produced in a dedicated manner for one specific use. In this case, a specific electronic device contains an electronic component, which has been designed on the basis of the existing requirements, inside a modular electronics housing in the form of a printed circuit board to which a terminal row designed in a specific manner for connecting single electrical conductors or connectors to the electronic component is fixed. Because the requirements for the terminal row are determined in this respect by the electronic component, entirely different terminal rows must be used for different electronic components. This makes the production of such terminal rows complex and diverse and therefore increases the costs thereof.
It has already been conventionally provided for different connection components, for example connectors or terminals, to be provided on a terminal row, and attached to a panel or similar, in order to form the terminal row. Although this makes the production of such terminal rows slightly easier, it still requires the production of specific components, for example dedicated panels, for producing a specific terminal row.
A control device for automatically controlling a technical system is known from DE 10 2011 055 920 83, in which a second modular part is attached to a first modular part. In this case, the first modular part accommodates a printed circuit board while connectors in the form of spring clamp terminals can, for example, be attached to the second modular part. A connecting terminal is known from DE 38 84 329 T2, which allows a plurality of electric cables of different cross sections to be connected. A connecting device is known from DE 10 2008 027 399 A1, in which a plurality of single-pole terminal portions are arranged side by side and bonded to one another.